


such is life

by Kumi



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Gender-neutral Reader, I love breaking my own heart, Nostalgia, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24781435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kumi/pseuds/Kumi
Summary: Kuroo Tetsurou is not normally someone who dwells on the past, but he finds that tonight, he can't quite shake the way it haunts him.Or—Nostalgia is a funny thing.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	such is life

**Author's Note:**

> A slightly different writing style! I've been feeling super emotional/nostalgic recently, and I've finished two manga series that are near and dear to my heart (Kimetsu no Yaiba and Tsubaki-chou Lonely Planet) so this ended up taking a different turn than what I was initially expecting.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

The clock on his phone flickers to 2am, and Kuroo sighs softly.

Tonight is one of those sleepless nights where his mind refuses to power off and it always leaves him thinking about unnecessary things. He settles for scrolling through his photos, though Kuroo knows it’s a bad idea. He’s never been one to delete photos, so there are plenty of memories that are waiting for him in the depths of the album.

As if on cue, a familiar smile—one that he hasn’t seen in person since the last day of high school nearly a year ago—comes onto the screen, and he taps the face. The image enlarges, and he’s met with a photo that used to be his wallpaper.

His arm is wrapped around your neck lazily, and your back is pressed to his chest as you snap the photo of the two of you on a date. His chin rests on the top of your head, and the gentle smile you give to the camera is one that he’s found himself on the receiving end of for as long as he’s known you.

Kuroo finds himself smiling at the photo, and he swipes across the screen, losing himself in the memories that each picture brings to mind. He’s normally not a nostalgic person, but somehow, you’ve changed that about him.

He’s always been a calculating person. Volleyball blessed him with the ability to learn how to read people, and nearly every move he made for years of his life was thought out and meticulous. But something about you lowered his defenses. With you, he tried to keep it at bay—he couldn’t figure you out completely. You scolded him whenever he tried to analyze you and pin down exactly what you were thinking, but it didn’t stop him from trying when you refused to talk about things.

He’s about to lock his phone when he comes across a photo of you together on your first date. His eyes linger on your face—the two of you were second years, and after much pestering and a whole lot of persistence, he had gotten you to say yes to going to a dessert café near the school.

Almost as if you knew he was thinking of you, his phone rings, and the number is one he recognizes immediately. He wonders, briefly, if he should just pretend to be asleep and deal with it in the morning. But he’s already feeling so nostalgic, and he wants to hear your voice.

“Tetsu?”

“Yeah,” he replies softly, his breath hitching in his throat. Nobody calls him that anymore.

“It’s been a while,” you continue, and he finds himself melting for the sound of your voice the way he used to. “I was thinking about you and wanted to see if you were up.”

He hesitates for a moment, wondering if this is a good idea, but he can’t stop himself. “I was, too.”

You let out a soft laugh, and Kuroo’s heart flutters in his chest. It’s a warm sound that he’s found solace in time and time again. “Nostalgia’s a funny thing, huh?”

“Definitely,” he replies.

“How was your first year?” you ask, and he can hear the sound of fabric brushing over the microphone as you shift positions.

“Tiring is probably the best way to describe it,” he tells you, pressing the phone to his ear as he uses the pillow to prop it up.

“I’d say the same,” you sigh. “It’s weird not seeing you in classes.”

High school feels like it was a different life—as if he were peering into someone else’s world for a brief moment. “It was pretty lucky that we were in the same class for all three years at Nekoma.”

You hum in agreement. “If you hadn’t befriended me in first year, I don’t know if we would’ve become as close. I was pretty hard to deal with in second year.”

Kuroo laughs. Just as he’s about to reply, he hears an unfamiliar voice from your end of the call.

“Still awake, [Name]?”

“Yeah, I’m just talking to Kuroo. I’ll go to bed soon.”

Kuroo’s heart sinks. He isn’t sure if it’s because you drop the affectionate nickname you’ve always called him by, or because he instinctively thinks that you’re _with_ him.

“Sorry, Tetsu. That was my roommate, he just got home from the library.”

“No worries. I actually have to go—early morning practice.”

_Why is he lying to you?_

“Oh, well we should catch up sometime soon.” Your voice shakes a little—if he didn’t know you the way he does, it would’ve gone unnoticed.

He wants to scream and cry, all at once. “Yeah. We can grab coffee at our usual place or something.”

_Our usual place_. The little café where you went on countless dessert dates together, where he had held your hand for the first time as the two of you left the shop. Where he had kissed you once, because there was whipped cream smeared on your chin and he wanted to see how flustered you’d get if he licked it off and delivered it back to you. Where he had seen you cry once after a particularly difficult week, and you let him feed you forkfuls of cake as you wept into his shoulder. The little, quaint café where Kuroo first told you that he loves you.

“I haven’t been there in a long time,” you say with a soft sigh, the mention of the place bringing to mind the yummy desserts and perfectly brewed coffee. Kuroo can tell you’re just as reminiscent of those times as he is, but he can also tell that the tone of your voice is off—he wonders why.

Just as he’s about to pull the phone from his ear, he hears a soft hiccup. _Ah—that’s why you sound off._ You try to play it off as a cough, but he recognizes the sound—he’s always recognized it.

His heart softens, and he feels the tears come to his eyes, too. He can’t help but wonder if you still cry the same way he’s always known you to cry—if you were still an ugly crier. He’s always thought that your crying face was a precious one; one that made him want to destroy whatever was hurting you, but at the same time, some twisted part of him really did like that you’d only really let yourself be vulnerable like that in front of him. He then wonders if that’s still the case you for—if he’s still the only one to have seen that side of you.

With that in mind, Kuroo can’t quite stop himself from telling you how he feels right now, and he wholeheartedly believes that you’ll scold him for it.

“I’ve missed you.”

He can hear the hiccup catch in your throat, as if it knows that now is not the time. You’re quiet, but he knows your mind is flipping through all the different reasons why he’d say something like this to you, and what you should say back.

“I miss you too, Tetsu.”

He laughs softly, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his palm. It doesn’t do anything to stop the tears, but he can pretend it helps.

“I wish I could get a Tetsu hug, but I guess this’ll have to do for now.”

He wishes he could hug you, too.

“Good night then, Tetsu.”

He lets out the breath he had been holding. “Good night,” he replies softly, and the phone beeps once, signalling the end of the call.

There’s a soft pitter patter that echoes in his chest, as if to remind him that he still feels empty, incomplete. It started the day you told him that you were accepting your offer to Kyoto University, mere days after he had told you he was accepted to UTokyo with a sports scholarship that would leave him paying next to nothing for his schooling.

Who was he to beg you to reconsider? To stay with him, and go to UTokyo? Not Kuroo Tetsurou—no, he wouldn’t have dreamed of doing such a cruel thing. The two of you made a promise, at the beginning of your third year, that you wouldn’t change your plans for each other. That no matter what, you would make only the best of choices for your futures.

But Kuroo didn’t realize, when he had intertwined his pinky with yours in that innocent promise, that _you_ were the most important part of the future he envisioned. That he had never truly believed the two of you would go your separate ways after high school, leaving behind a love that _still_ made his head spin.

The melancholic look on your face that day is still burned into his memory. The sadness in your eyes despite being able to study your dream program at your dream school, the gentle smile tugging at your lips as if to reassure him that this was okay—all of it weighed down on him heavily.

“Two hours is a long way to commute for a student,” is what you had said to him. He agreed, that it’d be impossible to manage a long-distance relationship alongside his volleyball practices and studies. Even if you were the one who did the commuting, he’d likely be too exhausted by the time you arrived after classes to even spend enough quality time with you to make the trek worth your while. And Kuroo was nothing if not practical, so with a hoarse voice, he had been the one to save you from saying the words, “We should break up.”

The two of you sat in your favourite café—in the booth where everything had started nearly two years ago—and held each other’s hands as the tears came quietly. The desserts were left untouched in front of you as you sat in quiet turmoil, your occasional _hiccup_ being the only sound that disrupted that silence. Without so much as touching the order, he laid down a few bills and walked you home, never once letting go of your hand. Your parents had been away on business, meaning there would be nothing to help distract you from the heartache once you went inside. When you reached your doorstep, neither of you wanted to part ways just yet, so you invited him into the familiar home to spend the night.

It wasn’t the first time he’s woken up with you in his arms, but it was certainly the last. He remembers the way the sunlight made your hair shine like liquid gold, tresses resting peacefully on his bare chest as your limbs remained tangled in one another. A soft kiss to your forehead was enough to stir you, and he let you wake slowly as he recalled the sleepless night. Part of him wished he could record your soft mewls—sounds he’d never heard fall from your parted lips until that night—and keep them forever, but he knew that a video wouldn’t do you justice. Making love to you was special, and it deserved to exist as a treasured final memory of his time with you.

He finds himself scrolling through his photos again until he lands on the last photo taken of the two of you together. The image of you peacefully asleep with your head on his chest and his hand buried in your hair brings back more memories, and if he tries hard enough, he swears he can smell the lingering traces of you.

It’s enough to break his heart all over again, and Kuroo lets it.


End file.
